Lace Up - A Travelling Exhibit By Canadian Museum of History

I recently travelled to Kitimat, British Columbia to check out the Canadian Museum of History's travelling Lace Up exhibit.

By strapping bones on their boots, skating started out as a means of transportation through frigid Europe dating back to the eleventh century. Over time it became much more of an enjoyable recreational pursuit with many ice games evolving

Of course when the Europeans started coming over to even colder Canada, skating and on-ice games became a dominant part of the Canadian cultural landscape right since the earliest days of the settlers.

Lace Up explores this history and the importance of skating in Canada and gives a glimpse of three major ice sports: figure skating, speed skating and, especially, hockey.

After debuting at the national museum back in 2006, this has become a very a well travelled exhibit over the years. You can see why, as it allows local museums the chance to display many local tie-ins from years gone by, and that is the real star of the show for so many small town museums.

Kitimat did a decent job of this, given their lack of space. Kitimat has a lot of hockey history, in particular, and it would have been nicer to see more of that. Kudos to the museum for dedicating a fair amount of space to the figure skaters and even some speed skating.

If you ever get a chance to see this exhibit in your local museum, I would highly recommend going. St. Thomas, Ontario gets it early in 2017.

And, if by chance, you happen to be a museum curator, I would recommend exploring this option.

Below are a couple more photos. Check out my full photo collection on the GreatestHockeyLegends.com Facebook Page.